History Film / TheDebt1999

* TheoryOfNarrativeCausality: Just to think that if that one mopper cleaner at the mall didn't make the floor all slippery, Gerard wouldn't have fallen to the ground, thus not attracting Stefan's attention and consequently the two would never have a conversation, with Stefan and Adam free to pursue their dreams of scooter business and Gerard off to harass somebody else entirely. Made even HarsherInHindsight when you consider that Gerard doesn't really seem to recognize his former neighbor Stefan until the latter specifically points thet out so that even if Gerard himself ended up actually noticing Stefan, chances are he would just ignore him.

* WeAllLiveInAmerica: Everybody pays in American dollars rather than zloties. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] since in the early 1990s, when the movie is set, the Polish currency (as well as pretty much every other in the post-Soviet bloc) experienced a period of inflation that did not come to a close until mid-decade and so much of business was made in dollars.

[[quoteright:187:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thedebt.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:187:"You have till tomorrow to get the money."]]

* EverybodyKnowsThat: Anybody who is familiar with the story on which the movie is based on (which was pretty much everybody going to see it in 1999) has to be well aware that it ends with [[spoiler: Adam and Stefan killing Gerard, only to be sent to jail themselves]].

* [[{{HeyItsThatVoice}} Hey, It's That Voice!]]: Cezary Kosiński starring as Tadeusz will probably ring some bells with those of the audiences familiar with Roman Polanski's ''[[{{Film/ThePianist}} The Pianist]]'', in which he played the musician taunting the German prisoners of war at the end. As far as Polish movies go, he is a regular.

* AdaptationalHeroism: In the movie, Adam and Stefan are just a pair of young businessmen with much enthusiasm and little experience in the harsh realities of the post-communist Poland, making them easily relatable to the audiences. Their RealLife counterparts were much more shady characters who didn't lose sleep over tax evasion and other ways to avoid the officials if it meant they could save some cash and their reluctancy to go the police immediately after being threatened by the mobster was partly because of their concerns over being held accountable for those offences.
** One of the most controversial aspects of the case was the allegedly excessive brutality in which Adam's Real Life counterpart [[spoiler: murdered the mobster's bodyguard.]] In the movie, [[spoiler: the two are killed within seconds, although, much like in reality, their heads are also cut off their bodies in order to make the police believe they are just victims of a gang war]].
** This raises some issues concerning the movie's closing card that states both Adam and Stefan were given 25-year long sentences for [[spoiler: murdering Gerad and Shorty]]. Considering that the movie fails to portray any criminal action on the part of the two protagonists aside from [[spoiler: the murder, which itself is carried out swiftly and without excessive pain]] and Adam actually gives himself and Stefan up on his own volition when the case is still fresh, the viewer is left wondering what exactly caused them to be given such harsh sentences.

'''''The Debt''''' (Polish: ''Dług'') is a 1999 drama film by Polish director Ryszard Krauze, starring Robert Gonera, Jacek Borcuch and Andrzej Chyra. The movie, [[BasedOnATrueStory based on real events]], tells the story of Adam Borecki (Robert Gonera) and Stefan Kowalczyk (Jacek Borcuch), young up-and-coming businessman in a newly capitalist Poland of the early 1990s whose promising careers go south once they come across Gerard Nowak (Andrzej Chyra), a shady "enterpreneur" who starts harassing the two over a debt they never even took in the first place, effectively ruining their whole lives in the process. Adam and Stefan are desperate to get rid of the mobster and will do so at any costs, [[spoiler: even if it means killing him and be given 25-year long jail sentences]].

** One of the most controversial aspects of the case was the allegedly excessive brutality in which Adam's Real Life counterpart [[spoiler: murdered the mobster's bodyguard.]] In the movie, [[spoiler: the two are killed within seconds, although, much like in reality, their heads are also cut off their budies in order to make the police believe they are just victims of a gang war]].

* DirtyCoward: Tadeusz, the most recent victim of Gerard's "debt" intimidation technique, pretends to break his leg just so he doesn't get to take direct part in [[spoiler: whatever Adam and Stefan have in store for Gerard and his bodyguard Shorty once they capture them]]. His game is immediately seen through by Adam though.

* TroubleEntendre: Throughout the movie, Gerard keeps insisting that there is a debt Adam and Stefan even though the two expressed only an initial interest in his assistance and rejected it when they found out how ridiculously expensive it would be. TruthInTelevision, actually, as this was the common practice of mobsters in Poland during the early 1990s since according to the law you would get a much lighter sentence for trying to enforce paying a nonexistent debt than if you just flat out tried to extort money out of somebody.

* Frameup: In order to intimidate Adam, Gerard forces him to leave his fingertips on a knife that was used to kill a man so that if Adam ever tried to break free of Gerard's grip, he would be the only suspect in a murder case.